THE ENDLESS (2018)

 

I've been obsessed with this film ever since I first saw it at the theater in 2018. After watching it multiple times, I'm convinced there's something, alive, something almost mystical about it. This isn't a feeling I have about many films, even the ones I love and find fascinating enough to rewatch and study. Whenever I watch THE ENDLESS, I get the disturbing feeling that something has changed, that characters are placed differently, or that locations aren't the same as they were in past viewings. Is it possible that the mysterious entity portrayed in the story has seized control of the actual movie? Or am I just losing my mind?

I'll have to watch it again, maybe ten or twenty times, before I decide.

Co-directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorehead star as brothers Justin and Aaron Smith. The two men were raised in a commune called Camp Arcadia, which is located in a remote wooded area in California. The commune members support themselves by making and selling beer. When Justin was a teenager, he escaped from the commune, taking his younger brother with him. He believed the commune was actually a UFO death cult and told that to the press when he escaped. Aaron, however, remembers the commune as a beautiful place with good, fresh food and people who cared about him. Ten years after leaving the commune, both young men still struggle in trying to live a "normal" life. They have trouble making friends and meeting women. Both of them are in counseling for cult deprogramming. Aaron resents the control his older brother has over his life and wishes they had never left the commune.

A video cassette tape arrives in the mail with a mysterious message. A woman from the commune appears to be saying farewell and that she and the other members are looking forward to their "ascension". Justin believes they're finally going to commit suicide. Aaron tells his brother that he wants to go back for just one night to gain closure. Justin agrees, thinking it might be good for Aaron to see the place for what it really is. Once there, the two men experience strange phenomena as they try to understand the secrets of the commune/cult. For one thing, why do the members look the same age as when the boys left ten years ago? And why are there two moons up in the sky with a third moon slowly appearing? 

To reveal any more details of the story would deprive first time viewers of some incredible surprises. Just forget everything you thought you knew about time, space, eternity, and all of that cool stuff when you sit down to watch THE ENDLESS. For that matter, forget everything you though you knew about how to make a horror film. The directors have created something totally unique: an involving, terrifying film devoid of the violence and bloodletting so common in modern horror movies.

Justin Benson and Aaron Moorehead

THE ENDLESS premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2017 and was released in the United States a year later. There is so much to praise here, from the believable, natural performances, to the atmospheric locations and cinematography. The special effects are brilliant, but do not overwhelm the human story. The film also makes good use of music. The folk song House of the Rising Sun is interspersed throughout. According to the filmmakers, choosing this song was an economic decision, as it's in the public domain. But the song, performed in an eerie, bluesy style by a female singer, whose identity isn't named in the credits, somehow fits perfectly into the weirdness of the film, even though the lyrics seem unconnected to the plot.

An earlier Benson-Moorehead film, RESOLUTION (2013), a brilliant mind-bender all on its own, features two characters who are involved in the mystery of THE ENDLESS. I highly recommend both of these films. In fact, it might be best to watch them as a double feature, although I can't promise you an obsession-free existence after the fact.

Benson wrote the story and Moorehead was the cinematographer. Music was by Jimmy LaValle. Also starring Callie Hernandez, Lew Temple, Tate Ellington and James Jordan. Other Benson-Moorehead feature films: SPRING (2014), SYNCHRONIC (2019) and SOMETHING IN THE DIRT (2022).